Three Months
by Gnom DePlume
Summary: A tale of stalking, obsession, and why goth girls should be more careful visiting attics. Beetlejuice was still haunting the house while the Maitlands were in the Neitherworld... One-shot set in movie canon.


A/N: So one day I was innocently reading tumblr posts, and satsuki-chan (aka ) has this awesome post about how Beej was creeping on Lydia during the three months the Maitlands were in the Neitherworld waiting to talk to Juno, and that's when he developed his srs bizness crush on the goth girl. As I said at the time, "this hit me right in the feels, and as everyone knows that is how baby fanfiction is born." I've finally decided I don't hate my writing (but only, y'know, in this particular case [anything else I write must be individually author-reviewed]) so I'm sharing with the class.

**Three Months**

Day 1:

Those chumps decided drawing a door was better than yours truly? Beetlejuice rolled his eyes and put away his TV broadcasting equipment, plopping into the ratty couch that had been a cow mannequin seconds before. They'd be back before you could say 'unhelpful bureaucracy.'

Day 5:

The distinctive creak of the attic floorboards distracted him from the dart game he was playing with a blindfold and an unfortunate silverfish that had decided the cardboard of the model was tasty.

Snatching up his periscope, he wedged open the coffin lid and jammed the scope into the seam in the cork and foam that lead to the surface. He peered around the blindfold into the view piece.

It was that girl again.

Seriously, what was taking so damn long for the Maitland chumps to do in the Neitherworld? They didn't have an appointment, fer chrissake. Were they really going to cash in a help voucher for a lousy bio-exorcism? He was a conman, and even he wasn't planning on charging them _that_ much.

She was probably going to mope around up here for hours, if the last time was any indication.

He slammed the periscope shut and tossed it over his shoulder. There went his plans for the evening. If he wanted to fly under the radar and not get his ass reported and deported from the world of the living tout suite, there were a few (thousand) stipulations, rules and regulations, ironclad covenants, etc. that were strictly enforced by the Guild of Bio-Exorcists. Just like membership in the guild was enforced, even for freelancers – with projectile vomiting and dismemberment. Blackmailing the council chairman only got you so far (Beetlejuice had taken all the credit for burning down a post office, but he had pictures of the real culprit caught in the act).

He had a license to kill, to possess, and to cause general mayhem, but only on the job. The resident ghosts were fucking pushovers, though, they'd crack soon. If they ever got back. Until then, as much as he'd like to make the acquaintance of a gullible kid…

The silverfish was still wailing and begging, so he peeled it off the spider web covering the wall (former owner deceased and delicious). He really didn't need to have to hide from a suspicious breather rubbing two brain cells together, wondering where the tinny shrieking was coming from, and digging up his coffin.

"A…are you going to let me go?" the slender bug asked, its antennae twitching.

"No," Beetlejuice said. Then he bit off its head and thoughtfully began to munch.

If the little goth was going to make a habit of this, there had to be a way to turn the situation to his advantage.

Day 11:

After she left, he sat there tapping his palm with the periscope. So far, he knew that she was a giant (relatively speaking), shapeless black sack with a pale oval on top marked by two black eyes and other, spikier black bits sticking out, often topped by black hats.

He wanted to know what, exactly, she found so fascinating about the Handbook. The expanded space in his coffin had nearly collapsed, he'd poured so much of his limited energy into the zoom function of the scope while trying to see which parts she was giggling and gasping at.

Day 13:

No sign of the chumps.

He was getting really goddamned bored, holed up in his coffin with nothing to do but daydream of all the ways he was going to scare the bejeezus out of _everyone_ in the house. And if the Maitlands weren't going to do the trick, say the B-words three times…well, never let it be said that he let an opportunity slip through his moldy clutches!

That girl was back.

And he had a plan to get a much better seat in the house. Literally.

Regulation 37 alpha, regarding advertising in the Guild of Bio-Exorcists, restricted contact with potential clients to one point of origin and spectral location per client. You weren't supposed to move in to that location, but hell, there were insects and arachnids and breezes and…and _everything_ _else_ topside so it was generally worth it to be stuck in one spot there than free to roam the Neitherworld.

That regulation had always seemed like more of a guideline to him, anyway. (All of the Handbooks had his ad in them, for instance. All of them. Nobody could figure out how he was doing it, but they didn't take into account his willingness to do a little dishonest labor now and then, and his brief stint working under an alias at the Handbook for the Recently Deceased Press.)

He'd debated between the church tower and the house on the hill as the highest view point in the model town, and decided the house was the clear winner. He left enough of his power behind to lie like a corpse-simulacrum in the ordinary, unexpanded confines of his coffin. That oughta fool anybody looking for long enough that he could pop back in and pretend he never left.

What he hadn't counted on was that he wouldn't actually need the binoculars, because she had decided to photograph the model tonight.

He got several really excellent views as she bent over with the camera that proved she wasn't nearly as young as he had thought: a teenager, not a kid.

He used the binoculars anyway.

Day 30:

She usually visited the attic at least twice a week. He could often predict which days because she had a tendency to slam the front door when she came home from school around 3:30. It was a strain to hear what was going on in the rest of the house when he was technically stuck in the attic, but if he let go of everything he'd juiced up (except what he needed to pull the wool over the eyes of those lousy job inspectors in case a surprise visit was in store) and let his presence attenuate until he was barely a wisp, he could do it.

He'd set an alarm on one of his watches to remind him to check every weekday. It never went off because watches don't work when they're incorporeal. Whenever she left the attic so did he, in every way that counted. As the barest fragment of thought, he followed her around and waited by the door like a faithful dog whenever she left the house, only occasionally wandering around the rest of the place and quirking what would have been a twisted eyebrow at Delia 'sculpting' and 'remodeling.'

It was just more interesting than waiting around for the chumps in the attic, he told himself. He could quit whenever he wanted.

Day 42:

Lydia had a bad habit of talking out loud while she wrote, especially in her diary.

Day 59:

Her visits to the attic were the best part of his day. He only bothered materializing anymore when Lydia was up there with him.

He wanted to talk to her – in person, and not two inches tall.

He could do it, if he didn't leave behind the simulacrum. He had enough juice to either be two inches tall and have enough left over to furnish a comfy coffin, or he could be two inches taller than normal and completely powerless, ghost-wise.

He could do it, but what would he say?

Day 67:

Every scenario he imagined ended with her refusing him, saying he was just a one night stand and she never wanted to see him again, or that she hated him forever.

He wasn't going to risk it.

Day 69:

What the hell, wasn't he the ghost with the most, the most eligible bachelor since Valentino crossed over? Lydia was into his style in a _major_ way. (Hadn't he heard all her diary entries?)

He was going to do it!

As soon as he'd planned out their beautiful wedding and gotten his hands on a great ring.

Day 90:

Shit. Shit!

Juno was their caseworker. Of all ghouls, it had to be her raining on his parade. As if warning his chumps would help, like he couldn't finagle his way past a few reservations. Ha! On the other hand, it wasn't like she would snitch on him for being the dirty rule-breaker he was. She would, however, be watching the house like a hawk and interfering all over the place like the meddling old busybody she was.

There was nothing for it.

Back to the original plan.

With a few little…addendums. Slight modifications, you could say.


End file.
